A little over a year ago our son went to Fiji to do work for a government program there. If he had taken all of his United States dollars and put them in Fijian dollars, they’d be worth nearly 12 percent more today than keeping them as U.S. dollars.

How does something like that happen?

Fiji’s economy is still "emerging," as they say. When it comes to bringing in foreign money, the greatest source of income is remittances from Fijians who live abroad.

That doesn’t make for a solid currency.

Within the country, the biggest contributor to the Fijian economy is tourism. Multiple planeloads of Australians and New Zealanders are flown in each day, especially this time of the year when it’s winter down there. Fiji’s flagship airline, Air Pacific, also flies a nearly full Boeing 747 six days a week from Los Angeles to the international airport at Nadi (pronounced as candy but with an "n" instead of a "c"). People from other South Pacific island nations, Koreans and Japanese also come in significant numbers.

That could help boost the country’s currency value, but I’m told tourism is down as a result of the political situation. So why is the Fijian up? (By the way, visiting there this month, I was never once concerned about the political situation.)

About 17 percent of economic revenue in Fiji comes from agriculture, mainly sugar cane. But that’s not the most lucrative of crops. And Fiji Sugar Co. said this month it might have difficulty delivering its quotas to its European customers.

So that can’t be the answer either.

Fiji’s government is currently operating under an interim prime minister, as Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama calls himself, after leading a coup d’état in December 2006. It was the fourth coup the South Pacific island nation has had in the last 20 years. Two weeks ago Bainimarama announced he was postponing plans for a democratic election in March.

That’s not the kind of government western capitalists like.

And yet the Fijian dollar that was worth less than 61 cents U.S. 14 months ago is now worth almost 69 cents. That gain of nearly 12 percent is not too far behind the 15 percent gain of the euro, the currency du jour for world trading these days. The Canadian dollar has only gained about 5 percent on the greenback and the Mexican peso has gained just 4 percent. And, for as much as Americans don’t like the idea of a British pound that’s worth $2 U.S., that rule of thumb hasn’t changed in years, so they’ve gained nothing on us.

The results of the U.S. dollar’s fall is most obvious at the gas pump. The car I drove in Fiji required diesel. The government-regulated price works out to be about $5.24 per gallon. That may be more than the average $4.82 per gallon AAA said diesel was last week in Tucson, but it represents a 20 percent increase in the last year in Fiji as opposed to a 63 percent jump at the Tucson pump.

This doesn’t make sense. Again I ask what’s right with the Fijian dollar or maybe more importantly, what’s wrong with the U.S. dollar? Whatever it is, we American consumers are paying the price.

E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.